The Tomorrow File

by Lawrence Sanders

  I was not gruntled by his imaginative analysis and solution of the , problem. I should have anticipated him.

  The remainder of that day was spent observing the Surgical Team run a stop watched rehearsal on one of the Hyman R. Lewisohn humanoids. Maya Leighton was with me.

  They were coming up to performance level. As the mock operation progressed, the team built up to full strength. Then gradually decreased in number as, during the actual operation, they would be phased out by Leo Bernstein’s Team of hematologists.

  I watched two complete runthroughs. When they started the third, I decided I had seen enough. On the following day they would begin practicing actual surgical procedures, cutting into the first Hyman R. Lewisohn dummy. Still intact on the operating table. Chest rising and falling rhythmically. Shining glass eyes staring at the ceiling.

  "I can’t stand the thought of that cafeteria food tonight," I said to Maya Leighton. “Or the unisex barracks. Too much snoring. Too many groans.”

  “My place,” she said promptly. “I’ve got two natural ham steaks in the freezer. And some other stuff. We’ll pop it all into the microwave.”

  “Stay the night?” I said.

  She looked at me. Surprised.

  “Of course,” she said. “You think I’m asking you just for my hams?”

  Then we both collapsed. Almost hysterical laughter.

  "Let’s stop at a grogshop first," I said. "What would you like?’’

  She told me.

  “To drink,” I said.

  “Oh . . . anything,” she said. “Have you ever tried avocado brandy?”

  “I never have,” I said grumpily, “and don’t intend to. Let’s go. Leave the transcribing of those tapes till tomorrow.”

  “Yes, ruler,” she said.

  “Oh-ho,” I said. “It’s going to be one of those nights, is it?”

  “I hope so,” she said.

  Four, perhaps five hours later, we were in the bedroom of her apartment. Not completely rational. We had drunk things. Popped things. Inhaled things. Injected things.

  Maya had purchased a curious garment for herself. It must have been quite lovable. Natural rubber in a grayish-beige shade. Almost flesh-colored. Almost. It was not unlike a skin diver’s wet suit. But it had gloves, feet, a hood that covered her face and hair.

  Her eyes glittered through two small holes. There was an elevated, ventilated V over her nose. Mouth completely covered. All of her pressed tightly in this elastic envelope. I had helped her pull it on. Even with the aid of zippers and a powdered interior it took almost thirty minutes for her to become enshrouded. The most harrowing feature of this monstrous garment was, I thought, the carmined lips painted across her rubbered mouth.

  She lay on her back, quite still. Arms at her sides. Legs slightly spread. I watched her coated breasts rise and fall regularly. The heart pumped. Fluid coursed through her vascular system. Beneath the two skins.

  To me, the sight of her was at once shocking and exciting. It recalled the paintings of Egon Schiele: sexuality and dread. I couldn’t begin to compute it. Darkness so profound that ... A primitivity there. Something so crude and elemental that it stirred a forgotten bog.

  Those flickering eyes. Tight rubber convexing to nipples and belly, concaving to navel and vulva. The sticky sheen of the second skin. Artfully placed seams. I bent over to stare into the eyeholes. A peer into the past. Aeons ago. The ooze. She did not assist when I put my hands upon her. Nor did she resist.

  I won’t attempt to analyze the psychopathology of what we did. It is not one of my disciplines.

  A few days after that (blank) night—I use (blank) here to indicate a deficiency in the English language. I want a word that means you’d like to forget it but you can’t. “Haunting” is close, but not exact—I found a note in my Lewisohn Building office asking me to buzz Paul when I had some open time. I buzzed him.

  “Paul? Nick. I’m open. What is it?”

  “Nick, could you come down here? I have something to show you—some computer printouts. Too clumsy to lug up to your office.”

  So I went to his office. The computer printouts weren’t all that extensive. But I went to his office. I mention this because. . . .

  “You don’t have to scan all this kaka,” he said. “Just take a look at the bottom line.”

  It was a preliminary report, not authenticated, from the miniteam of Houston neuropsychologists who had been running the Ultimate Pleasure testing of the Operation Lewisohn staff. Preliminary it may have been, but the results were astonishing. On an arbitrary 1 to 10 scale, efficiency of the control group showed 6.9; of the placebo group 7.7; of the actual UP group 9.6.

  “It’s serving,” Paul said. Trying hard to keep the enthusiasm out of his voice. Trying to be the cold clinician. “The UP group is definitely hooked. Their production norms are incredible. Performance excellent. And wait till you scan the personal interviews. They’ll serve until they drop for another UP injection.”

  “What about the slave factor?” I said.

  “Confirmed. It exists in 84.8 percentile points of the total UP group. According to computer analysis of fantasy factors.”

  “So?” I said. “What’s your recommendation?”

  “First of all, I want to finalize the study here. I don’t anticipate ultimate numbers will vary significantly from what we already have. But Operation Lewisohn is a special case. I want a full-scale field test. Nick, do you think your father will cooperate? Let us run a project in his factories, on the assembly lines?”

  I computed a moment. “I’m sure he will,” I said. “Especially if it results in increased productivity.”

  Paul laughed. “That’s what I figured. We’ll pick three generally similar factories. Plants engaged only in assembly. One factory is the control; servers get nothing. Servers in the second plant get placebo injections. In the third they get the real thing. I assume your father keeps object-hour productions records?”

  “Of course. Has to. For the unions.”

  “Right. Well, those will give us statistical norms. Then after, say, six months of the test, we should have a clear idea of the effect of the UP on industrial production.”

  “And then?” I asked.

  He paused a moment. The pouts had disappeared. The softness. The boyish indecision. A ramrod now, but not strutting. He had stressed himself, and found he could hack it. From that came the self-esteem he had needed. He had been in my shadow, a coattailer. Now he was . . . what? I didn’t know. I literally did not know. A stranger.

  More, he was moving into areas I could not compute. I was older than he: a prime factor. But age alone could not account for our growing estrangement. There was a fundamental disparity. I felt it, and I trust my corpus. What he undoubtedly saw in me as a weakness, I saw in him as a lack. I tried (sometimes failing) not to begrudge his enormous talents. I think, in all honesty, I must admit this: At that point in time, he began to frighten me.

  “And then?” I repeated. After he had been silent for almost a minute.

  He took a deep breath.

  “Well,” he said, “it’s obvious, isn’t it? We must do some heavy brainstorming on the theoretical structure of a society that can maximize the value of the UP. After the gross outlines are postulated, we can get on with effectualizing it. Translating theory into practice. Just for starters, we should increase our research efforts in the area of biobehavorial controls. We’ve got to minimize the terrorism rate.”

  “Scratch that last for the moment,” I said. “Let’s discuss the nature of this society that will maximize the value of the UP. How do you see it?”

  He looked at me. Then shrugged.

  “It’s apparent, isn’t it?” he asked. “We agreed the UP would be a political drug. Serving at max efficiency in a society that complemented it. That, to me, can mean only a heavily structured authoritarian government. Designed to take full advantage of the UP’s slave factor.”

  He was going too fast.

 
“You’re projecting the government as master?” I asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “And the citizen as slave?”

  “Yes. All indicators point to that relationship as the foundation of Ultimate Pleasure. Nick, it scans. No responsibilities. No decisions to make. No fears of the unknown. A planned existence. Absolutely free.”

  “You’re equating slavery for freedom?”

  He computed a moment. Then nodded.

  “You can put it that way. If it pleases you. Yes. As a matter of fact, it’s operative. Conventional freedom, like morality, is a luxury. But the world cannot afford it. It’s like economic competition. We both know how uneconomic that is. How unlovable. Today, and certainly tomorrow, only absolute authority can produce absolute freedom.”

  “Absolute authority?” I said. “You mean absolute tyranny?” He seemed to be doing a great deal of shrugging.

  “All right,” Paul said. “Call it tyranny if you wish. Absolute tyranny producesi absolute slavery which provides absolute freedom which produces absolute happiness. Does that startle you? It shouldn’t. Your Ultimate Pleasure resulted from a sexual fantasy of complete submission.”

  “Granted,” I said. “But I think you’re making a fatal error. It’s been nagging at me since we last discussed this. I think it’s this: We agreed that the UP would be maximized in a society that complemented it. A society that offered a political atmosphere in which the UP could be utilized for |he greatest good of the individual. But you’re starting with a political drug of known effect and tailoring a society to fit the individual’s needs.”

  “Why not?” Paul said. “Society exists to fulfill the individual’s needs.”

  “Ah-ha,” I said. “That’s where you’re off. Society exists to fulfill society’s needs. Otherwise, rape would be legal and opium would be sold in slot machines. The desires of the individual are in constant conflict with the needs of society. That’s what law is all about.”

  “You’re saying society must always be in conflict with the needs of its citizens?”

  “Not their needs, Paul, their desires. Their fantasies. Their brutal dreams. In the perfect world, there would be no conflict. But objects being what they are, society must guard the preservation of the species against individual aggression. Look. . . . Society sets certain standards of human behavior. In our codified laws. Simply to keep the jungle from creeping in. Society cannot be constituted to pander to the lowest levels of human behavior. It must set criteria of behavior—sometimes impossible criteria, I admit—to which objects can aspire.”

  “That’s rank romanticism,” Paul said.

  “Is it?” I said. “Your projected society is better? A tyranny that exploits the grossest instincts of the species? I thought you were a Beist. Believing in the human species and its eventual evolution in something divine.”

  “I’m a Beist for reasons of temporary strategy,” Paul said. “You know that. I’m no wowser. I told you the world of tomorrow has a better chance of success with an emotional and/or religious factor. Slogans. Ritual. Flags. Prayers. Songs. The whole PR schmeer. But there is nothing in my projection of an authoritarian political society that negates what the Beists stand for.”

  “I think we better discuss this again,” I said. “After Operation Lewisohn is concluded. I think we have a lot to talk about.” “Yes,” Paul said. Quirky smile. “I think we do.”

  On July 2, 1999, I set out again, in civilian clothes, to the neighborhood of the late Arthur Raddo. There was no Adonis Club, restaurant, or tavern listed in the D. C. directory. So, once again, I parked on a sidestreet and ambled onto the stage. Same scene. Same actors therein. I wondered if the curtain ever came down. Certainly the sets were never shifted, the cast never changed.

  I listened patiently to all the jostlers who approached me. Drugs, natural foods, Sadie Moscowitz, ef prostitutes,'ems, infants. Whatever my heart desired. I let them finish their pitch, then I made mine. Where was Adonis?

  It didn’t take long. Less than an hour. Then an obso transvestie supplied the input. Adonis was a private cellar club. Members only. I bought the address for ten new dollars.

  There was nothing outside to mark it. No sign. No lights. I stumbled down a short flight of brick steps from the street. Kicked gently at a steel door. A small panel, eye-level, slid open. I could see nothing. Darkness inside.

  “Yes?” a pleasant voice inquired.

  “I’d like to come in,” I said.

  “Sorry, sir,” the pleasant voice said. “This is a private club. Are you a member?”

  “No,” I said, “but I’d like to join.”

  “Sorry, sir,” the pleasant voice said. “New members must be recommended by a present member. Are you a friend of a present member?”

  “I’m a friend of Arthur Raddo,” I said. “I was a friend of Arthur Raddo.”

  “Just a minute, please, sir,” the pleasant voice said.

  The panel slid shut. I waited outside that black steel door for not one, but several long minutes. I was about to kick again when the door swung open. Not wide. Just enough to let me slip through. Then it was cracked shut and bolted behind me.

  Complete darkness. A soft hand on my elbow guided me. Across a plasticarp. I came up against a piece of plastisteel furniture. A desk. I fumbled, touching. A flashlight came on. Pointed down at an open ledger.

  “Sign here, please, sir,” the pleasant voice said. “Twenty new dollars. Cash. No BIN card. All drinks and food purchased in cash. You are allowed to bring a single guest each visit.”

  “You want my name?” I said foolishly.

  “We want a name, sir.”

  I signed “Mickey Mouse.” It didn’t even raise a chuckle. A beautifully manicured hand came out of the darkness to take my love.

  “This way, Mr. Mouse,” the pleasant voice said.

  The inner room, the cabaret, was not so Stygian. But dark enough. I could make out, dimly, a stage, tables, booths, a bar. I thought the objects in the room were both ems and efs. The costumes fooled me for a moment. All ems.

  “Table or bar, sir?” the pleasant voice asked.

  “Bar, please,” a said.

  I was gently guided. When I could touch the bar, a swiveling barstool, the warm hand left my arm. I didn’t turn to inspect him. I couldn’t have made him out. What illumination there was in the room came from the weak floods focused on the stage.

  “Sir?” a pleasant voice said. In front of me. I peered.

  “Dr. Bartender, I presume?” I said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Natural brandy, please.”

  “Yes, sir. Water on the side?”

  “Please.”

  The pupil is a remarkable organ. After ten minutes I could discern the small snifter of brandy before me on the bar. I could even see, dimly, the bartender who had served me. A luscious lad. There were a few other singles seated at the bar. But most of the members at tables or in booths were couples or parties of four. Very quiet.

  Very restrained. No raucousness. Possibly the most genteel frail joint I had ever visited.

  The lights pointed at the stage went off. The room was in total darkness. Then the lights came on again. Bright. Blinding. A loudspeaker clicked on.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the management of your Adonis Club is proud to present, by popular demand, a return engagement of that exciting star performer—Tex!"

  Curtains parted. To the recorded strains of Brahms’ “The Rose Breaks Into Bloom,” a tall, muscular em clumped onto the minuscule stage. He was wearing the black leather costume of a motorcyclist. Complete with tinted bubble helmet that concealed hair and features. The tight jacket, pants, heavy boots seemed to have a hundred zippers, a thousand metal studs. The zippers were languorously slid open, in approximate time to the music. As the audience sucked its breath. Nothing better being available at that point in time.

  Brahms seemed to repeat three times. Eventually, the strip-biker was down to tight bikini panties and that opaque
helmet. Striding the dusty stage on bare feet. The corpus was that of a weight lifter: enormously developed deltoids, biceps, quadriceps. Attractive Roman fold about the pelvis. As I should have anticipated, the buttocks were extraordinary. Peachy. When he finally removed the panties and stood naked (except for that concealing helmet), his family jewels proved to be rhinestones. No matter; the audience approved. There was a frantic snapping of fingers. He took six curtains calls. On the final call, he removed his helmet. That was a mistake.

  I turned back to my empty brandy glass and signaled for a refill.

  “Have one with me?” I asked the bartender.

  “Sorry, sir,” he said. “We’re not allowed to drink with members of the club.”

  “Have one with me?” I repeated.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said.

  He mixed something swiftly behind the bar. Raised the glass briefly to me, in thanks, drank, then lowered the glass out of sight. In that darkness, even I, closest to him, could hardly see what he was doing.

  “Arthur Raddo,” I said. “Did you know him?”

  “Who?” he said.

  I reached across the bar to clasp his hand. And transfer a ten.

  “Arthur Raddo,” I said. Wriggling my hand free. “Did you know him? Artie? Ever see him?”

  “Artie,” he said. “Wasn’t that a shame?”

  “Yes,” I said. “A shame. A tragedy.”

  He liked the word.

  “A tragedy,” he repeated. “Yes, it was a tragedy.”

  “He came in here often?”

  “Oh ... not often. Once, twice a week. Like that.”

  “With anyone?”

  “Not at the bar. No. He came to the bar by himself. Up to a few months ago.”

  “And then?”

  “He came with a friend. They sat at a table. I wouldn’t know about that.”

  I sighed. I was running out of tens. So I gave him two fives. “Ask, will you?” I urged. “Any waiter who might have served him. Artie’s friend’s name, and what he looked like. The friend, I mean. What the friend looked like. Can you do that for me?” “Well . . .” he said doubtfully. “I’ll try.”

  “Do,” I said.

  “You’re so sweet,” he said.